Editing Fees and Guidelines

As my editing jobs have become more numerous, I have updated my Editing Fees and Guidelines. My editing and proofreading includes checking for grammar, sentence structure, misspellings, and pointing out plot inconsistencies, etc. At this time, my base charge is $0.008/word, with a minimum of $50, payable via PayPal. Editing jobs I am currently working on, received before May 1, 2014, will continue to be edited at the old rate.

If your manuscript is less than 5,000 words please let me know and we can work out pricing. I prefer to set up appointments for your manuscript, but please, send your manuscripts to me as early as possible. I can often work them in sooner than they are scheduled, but advance notice is much easier.

I use Microsoft Word 2013. I use the Track Changes application while I edit and leave the decision as to whether or not to accept those changes to you. I also tend to leave extensive notes outlining the reason for specific changes, noting uneven or awkward sentence or paragraph flow, or even if I noticed something that just doesn’t feel right.

Full editing is completed in one of two ways. The first choice is that I completely edit the book and provide you with a corrected copy, highlighting changes and corrections and making when appropriate extensive notes. Your second choice is full editing. I take the book in hand, do all corrections and changes and provide you with print ready copy. The charge for print ready copy is $0.010/word.

Please note: Books from authors who speak English as a second language, hence requiring a great deal more correction for grammar, or books with extensive re-write may be significantly more. You may send me your book for pricing if you feel there may be extensive work needed on the book. Pricing available upon request.

After I have edited a manuscript, I will send it back to you. Once you have made changes, you can always send it back to me for a second pass at no charge. Please note: If second-pass changes are truly extensive, I will reserve the right to bill a second payment for the second pass. I want to be fair to you, but I also want to be fair to myself. Just as writing is difficult, though rewarding, editing a book in a manner that will make you proud of your final product is a lot of work.

For available books on which I have worked, please see my “i-edited” shelf on Goodreads. You may contact any of the authors with whom I’ve worked for a reference. I am also very willing to provide you a sample of my work to see if we are a comfortable fit. I can be easily contacted through Goodreads or by e-mail at soireadthisbooktoday@centurylink.net

One day, the Great Spirit brought all creation together. . . “I want to hide something from our people until they are ready to learn.” “What is it?” he was asked.

“The knowledge that people create their own reality.”

Daisy O’Connor knows about creating her own reality. With a mother who drug her along like a rag doll from husband to husband, she had to become self-sufficient. Then, when husband number whatever, Running Bear, beat Daisy unconscious, Daisy and her mother left the Lakota reservation far behind. Then her mother left Daisy far behind, in Atlanta with her aunt while her mother moved with husband six to Germany.

No one wanted the young Daisy on the rez – not a pale skinned, redheaded, full-blooded Irish girl. But when her adopted grandfather, Charlie Tall Tree, calls her back to the rez to help her step-brother Eddie, how can she refuse the man who was so kind to her all those years ago? And Eddie himself, the other half of their mismatched pair, “bound together by a marriage between her full-blooded Irish mother and his full-blooded Lakota father.” Eddie was always her friend, even when the other children made her life a misery. So, the Jimmy Choo wearing, southern-speaking Daisy finds herself back in South Dakota on the Piney Creek. In-and-out. Find Eddie. Solve whatever problem he has gotten himself in this time. Get back to Atlanta and her catering business. Easy-peasy.

Well, not so much.

What Daisy finds isn’t simple. Or nice and clean, cut and dried. Instead, she finds her much loved Eddie, but he is strange and distant, showing up to beg for her help, then disappearing just as quickly without explanation or goodbye. Only a warning.

“He killed Father . . . and now he’s poisoning the rez.”

The “He” is apparently Kurt Jessup, owner of the Blue Dog Trading Post, rich man and aspirant mayor of Whittier, South Dakota. And if Daisy is going to find out what is going on, and why Eddie is so certain Jessup is ‘poisoning’ the Piney Creek, she is going to have to get close to Jessup. But getting close could cost more than Daisy ever expected.

I have to thank Ms. Sanders for writing such a realistic view of life on the rez. Being half Quapaw, I have walked my share of rez lands, and seen the deep poverty, the depression, alcoholism and lack of hope. The white people (of which I am half, admittedly) pushed the natives onto the poorest lands possible, where no crops will grow. Schools and medical facilities are nearly nonexistent, as is hope. But often alcohol and drugs are in easy supply, as they are on the Piney Creek in Sanders’ book.

The mystery in the book is very well written, and the characters are well designed. As this is the first in what I see will be a series (I see the next book is in development, “Dead Men Can’t Dance”) and I am excited to read that one as well. The only thing I found wanting in the book was proper editing. There were a plethora of grammatical errors and a few errors of logic and continuity. Other than that, a very satisfying book.

Oh. And the Chocolate Cola Cake with Pecan Glaze? GOTTA try that!!!

I received this book from ReadingAlley.com in exchange for a realistic review. All thoughts are my own.